President Obama pushed for a higher federal minimum wage in front of a friendly audience indoors at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday. While that was happening, a smaller and different audience of around 100 people stood outside in the cold chanting and holding up signs.
?One group of protestors chanted, among other things, “Obama, Obama, don't deport my mama.”
?The protestors, who are all from Connecticut, said they want the president to deliver the immigration reform that he had promised while campaigning.
?In 2012, the administration launched the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. It lets undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children avoid deportation, and get a two-year work permit.
Sabrina Garcia, 18, said it's something, but they need more. "I came here when I was six years old from Uruguay," she said. "I was able to get DACA, but my parents, obviously, were not, and there [are] many families in similar situations."
Garcia explained that they still face many limitations: for one thing, she’s applying to colleges, but her immigration status means she’s not eligible for a lot of scholarships.
Garcia's group wasn't the only one hoping to get President Obama's attention. Next to them were protestors with blue and yellow Ukrainian flags. People such as Ukrainian-American Danuta Votus were calling for sanctions against Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
?”We don't want to go back to Russia,” Votus said. “We [are] fighting for democracy and [a] free country; we want to go to [the European] Union.”
?Some of that group planned to join a protest at the Russian Embassy in New York on Thursday, and another in Washington, D.C. this weekend.
